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Decima Wraxall Poem
How was I to know a lightning bolt
would zig-zag into me? My body lies there on the ground,
a nurse, doing CPR.
Shocked voices. All eyes focused on the victim.
While over the way, I stand. Separate. Watching.
I move to tap a friend’s shoulder, saying, that’s me. But my hand
goes straight through. Spooked. Why doesn’t he know I’m here?
Floating upstairs, the foggy image of my legs, and physical self,
shimmer and disappear.
I find my wife on the other side of a wall. She’s reading,
to our youngest grandson. Bluish light shines around me,
clear and bright. But neither look up.
Suffused with pure love and energy, I’m attached
to everything, movement unrestricted.
Jolted back into my body, it’s agony. Sirens scream. Police .
Ambulance. Lights flash, white, red and blue.
Morphine. Sleep. Slow recovery.
But I’m not the same person. As a child,
I couldn’t stand classical music it. Hated the piano.
Now I ‘m driven to learn. That’s why I came back.
Taught myself to read music, plunked out tunes.
Still, destiny stalked the Concert Stage.
Music pours into me from dreams. Arriving so fast
I struggle to write it down.
I play night and day on an old instrument,
gifted my way.
A wide repertoire draws my concert fans.
People cry, have visions.
Moved by the frequency of the music.
While I shiver to think that, alive or
dead, there’s only a thread between.
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
RISKS
Scarred hills, risked mine shafts, dark and deep.
The plonk of a stone, dropped into water, far below.
Kids drifted to sounds of the gold-rush, pick and windlass.
But inside our school, Sir recruited afternoon classes into
battle. We piloted Spitfires, strafing Messerschmitts. Bingo!
The plane aflame, out of control. Drifting down, down. A spiral
of smoke.
Our teacher paced, face aglow. Alive to the tremble, the thrill,
in distant summer skies.
Windscreen hit, the scatter of shattered
glass. His odyssey of courage and blood …
At three thirty, older boys reminded Sir,
Time to go home.
Surprise in our mentor’s eyes .
His Spitfire hadn’t even landed.
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
REVELATION
It was ages since we ‘d met. I dread her visits.
The melodrama and discord leave me unmoored.
My sister’s hugs morphed into stones, dropped one by one.
Words hitting dark water. Circles of disbelief spun around me.
Not one scintilla of truth.
I glimpsed her self-satisfied smirk.
We’d been close in our teens…
A deep breath. No , Sis, it never happened.
She tossed her curls. But I was there. I saw you. Him too.
Did counselling
and hypnosis bring her easy certitude?
No sis…
She glared. It’s true. Do you think I’m mad?
DECIMA WRAXALL
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
BLACK LIVES
i
My friend bridles. Huh! All lives matter. Is she is being
deliberately obtuse? Should I add ‘’too’’ or ‘’do?’’
She adds, I’ve blacks in my family. We had
indigenous girls in nursing school. Never
treated them any differently. U.S. blacks
are lucky not to be back in Africa.
I feign agreement. How right you are. African Americans
must be grateful, living in that land of the free.
I’m sure George Floyd felt overjoyed to have such
good fortune. A cop’s knee on his carotid. Hands
in pockets. The killer whistling, while his victim choked
to death…
ii
Whites rarely experience racial slurs. Get shot in the back.
Suffer unlawful arrest. People of colour endure such abuses every day.
US parents drill kids, on strategies to survive.
Be invisible. Don’t answer back, even if the cop is wrong.
Never argue with a white. Keep car radio down. Blacks
are stopped for loud music. Or shot reaching for their
license. ‘’Illegal’’ U.S. kids, from babies to teens, are locked in cages.
So much for a country founded on immigration.
iii
Colonial settlers in both countries stole indigenous land. Gifted themselves black
house slaves. Cattle-yard slaves. Money never seen.
And what sort of men shot innocent blacks after church?
Set fire to their circular homes. Poisoned wells.
Rigid in the belief of white superiority, they denied tribal links to country.
Ignored their knowledge of survival.
But sorry began our crucial journey of healing .
iiii
Don’t close your eyes to acts of violence.
Hundreds of Australians and Americans have
died in police custody.
And - oh yes - they were black.
Let’s step forward in unison, kin under the skin.
Protect police whistle blowers.
Hear them speak the truth. Get rid of crooked cops.
Educate and create an honorable force.
And, yes: Black lives do matter.
Decima Wraxall
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
We dance, mutate and celebrate: another perfect host.
The old make easy prey, we watch them gasp
and slip away. And our kind are not averse
to the odd doctor or nurse, regardless of their ages.
But while the populace weeps and rages, the death
toll turns, a thousand pages .We catch the young
while on the run , target bathers soaking sun.
Here’s to a babe in its mother’s arms. He takes no solace
from our charms. We proliferate in lungs, leak bodily
juices, giving neither apology nor excuses. It’s strike,
strike and strike again. Attacking gaps in mask, gown
or gloves, we seize our chances.
The target’s cells weep blood, and slowly die.
Our deadly dancers sigh and shrivel, too. But that’s what
we were born to do. Others soon will take
our places, embracing all the creeds and races.
Decima Wraxall
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
ONTOLOGY
Water drips from the hairs on my arms, hands
held high to avoid contamination. I can’t wait
to begin. I guess this Adrenalin rush is what an actor feels
before he strides on stage. A nurse helps me don
my gown. I pull on my gloves. Surgeon, king of my domain.
Minions adjust the mirrored overhead light. I grasp my scalpel.
Fractured images explain the process to juniors. Jokey. Calm.
I’m floating on the easy insouciance of experience. My patient’s
elective surgery’s wasn’t serious. But my satisfied smile morphs into
emergency paddles. A flat line – cardiac arrest. Attempts to revive
him fail. I curse, jolted by this unexpected loss. Nothing to warrant
my sense of guilt. And how might I explain to his devastated family?
The theatre doors burst open. His wife, wild-eyed. Shouting. My
husband came to me in the waiting-room. Out of his body. Saying
you think he’s dead. Doctor, do something… Before we can hustle her
out, my patient’s pulse resumes beating. It doesn’t make sense.
Colour rushes back into his face. Nothing makes sense.
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
LOVE
Afternoon windows glittered gold.
Shadowed,
by a black and white meow.
T-R-I-X-I-E!
Our calls to no avail. And nobody had seen
a missing cat. She wailed to me in moonlight.
A neighbour released her paw, from the claws
of his trap. Oh, why hadn’t he checked it daily?
Shudders at the stink of her wound. Somber faces.
Antiseptic’s cleansing aroma, leg bandaged.
Trixie purred, lapping a little milk.
Daddy couldn’t meet my eyes.
We can only hope.
That very night, Trixie closed her eyes.
Blood red her rose. Glacial earth .
No. More. Pain.
But I vowed never to love again.
Decima Wraxall
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
SNAGGED
We trod the dusty path home from school, mottled
with casuarina shadows.
Gurgling ripples gave way to deep pools, my brother
skipping stones.
Khaki Campbell ducks brought chuckles.
Tipping back their heads,
water dripped from beaks, filtered, from their prey.
One day at the brook, a back-cast. The hook snagged
our friend in the base of his thumb. Dad frowned.
Reckon you could hold still, while I open it up a bit?
Robin nodded, gritting his teeth. At nine he didn’t
utter a sound, while Daddy’s sharpest
pocket knife sliced into flesh.
Blood flowed. I watched and howled.
Robin ashen.Silent.
Well, done, son it’s out.
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
MASKED
How dare you demand I wear
a mask. My civil rights are all I ask.
Force me to do so and I’ll sue.
What else is a citizen to do?
Soon she coughs and sneezes –
Droplets float, on gentle breezes. She infects young
and old, thinks it’s just a heavy cold. Hospitals
treat victims by the score, while Covid-19 hunts
for more. Patients gasp for breath, another dies
Nurses shiver at their cries. Don’t succumb to whims
and fancies. Wear a mask and help your chances.
DECIMA WRAXALL
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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Decima Wraxall Poem
GLACIAL
Scent of lilies.
His pain over, mine just begun.
I caressed those hands, gifted, loving.
Kissed his waxen brow.
A blink away from the dying sun,
the ignition key trembled.
I half-expected to waken,
clasped in his arms. Soothed
back to life, on the mourning air.
Our silent house stood strong,
and healthy,
ticking away lonely hours and empty nights.
While I flinched from the glacial steppes,
of our marital bed.
DECIMA WRAXALL
Copyright © Decima Wraxall | Year Posted 2020
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